Former Peralta College District watchdog urges voters to reject November parcel tax

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The Peralta Community College District, based in Oakland, Calif. on Tuesday, June 27, 2017. The district financial outlook as been dropped to negative by the Wall Street firm Moody’s Investor Services. (Kristopher Skinner/Bay Area News Group)

OAKLAND – Saying that he doesn’t trust Chancellor Jowel Laguerre “for a second,” the former chairman of a Peralta Community College District watchdog panel is urging the rejection of a November parcel tax measure because the district misuses similar tax dollars and he doesn’t believe that will change with an influx of new money.

Michael Mills, a retired Peralta professor and faculty union president, resigned from the Citizens Oversight Committee earlier this month. This week he filed a ballot argument against the upcoming measure, which would extend a $48 per-parcel yearly tax starting in 2020 in Albany, Berkeley, Oakland, Piedmont and Alameda.

The reason, he said in an interview, is that he’s found that Laguerre’s administration has misspent parcel tax dollars since 2015, pulling it from its intended use for classroom instruction at the district’s four colleges and using it for administrative salaries. He also has been unable to get assurances from Laguerre that the money from an extension of the tax will be spent as voters intend.

Mills said he likes Laguerre personally, but doesn’t trust him to do the right thing with the district’s finances.

Citing “weak management,” the bond rating firm Moody’s downgraded Peralta’s financial rating to negative last month. Now, Mills’ argument against the tax is another blow for the troubled district, which faces a $7.3 million budget shortfall.

“For three years, I have seen the misuse of your parcel tax dollars,” Mills wrote to voters in the ballot statement. “As Oversight Committee chairperson, I implored the district to honor taxpayer intent and return funding to the colleges, classrooms and, most importantly, the students. I asked for records showing which funds were allocated to the colleges and how they were used. These requests were denied or ignored.”

Laguerre insisted that future money would be spent properly and that voters can trust him.

“I have ascended to a high level in my profession partly because a lot of people have put their trust in me and I have not disappointed them,” he wrote in an email. He also said current parcel-tax dollars have been used properly, citing a recent district audit.

But Mills said the audit “cherry picked” aspects of how the money was spent and was not comprehensive.

In an interview Thursday, Mills said that district records from 2012 to 2015 clearly showed that parcel tax funds were spent as voters intended. But that changed, he said, when Laguerre was hired. Records clearly showing how the money spent were no longer provided to the oversight committee.

“That was not coincidental” with Lagurre’s arrival (in 2015), he said. “It was night and day. The money was gone. It didn’t go to the classrooms. We didn’t get answers.”

Peralta also has an $800 million bond measure on the November ballot. Mills said he isn’t taking a position on it because his repeated requests for detailed records were ignored.

Peralta board president Meredith Brown, a Laguerre supporter, said in an email that it doesn’t help the district “for people to harpoon a parcel tax. Peralta’s finances are managed in compliance with the law,” she said.

Laguerre has been accused of improper financial management in the past. In 2015, a civil grand jury criticized the Solano County Community College, where Laguerre was president, for “misleading and contradictory” language on a $348 million bond measure. He’s denied any wrongdoing.

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Mills is not alone in opposing the parcel tax. Trustee Nicky Gonzales Yuen, a critic of Lagurre’s fiscal management, has also said he will urge voters to reject it, calling his decision “heartbreaking” because the funds are needed.

If the measure is defeated, Mills said he could support a measure in 2020 if the district can demonstrate that current taxes are properly spent. “There has to be a plan,” he said.

Thomas Peele is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter on the Bay Area News Group's regional team. He has worked at newspapers, including Newsday, for 34 years in California and elsewhere. Peele focuses on government accountability, public records and data, often speaking about transparency laws publicly.